* General Motors Co said it may have known about problems with its ignition switches dating back to 2001 when it was developing but had not yet launched the Saturn Ion.

* U.S. investigators suspect that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 stayed in the air for about four hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, according to two people familiar with the details, raising the possibility that the plane could have flown on for hundreds of additional miles under conditions that remain murky.

* The U.S. launched a last-ditch effort Wednesday to avert a potentially costly diplomatic crisis with Moscow ahead of a vote Sunday in Crimea on whether the region should leave Ukraine and return to Russia.

* The Federal Reserve examined a key foreign-exchange benchmark months before global regulators sounded the alarm about potential manipulation, but officials took no public action.

* Game maker King Digital Entertainment Plc is planning to start trading this month on the New York Stock Exchange-valuing itself Wednesday at as much as $7.6 billion after it set a price range for its initial public offering.

* The U.S. could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out just nine of the country's 55,000 electric-transmission substations on a scorching summer day, according to a previously unreported federal analysis.

* The Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation into Herbalife Ltd, the maker of nutritional supplements that has spent more than a year battling hedge fund manager William Ackman over allegations it is a pyramid scheme.

* Purdue Pharma LP says it plans to submit its extended-release hydrocodone drug to the Food and Drug Administration later this year. The company's tablets are designed to prevent users from crushing them for snorting or injection. Shares of rival Zogenix Inc plunged more than 20 percent after the announcement, which appears to jeopardize sales of the company's just-launched drug Zohydro.

* Energy XXI Ltd agreed to acquire EPL Oil & Gas Inc in a $1.53 billion cash-and-stock deal that will create the largest publicly traded oil-and-gas producer in the shallow waters of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

* A former Credit Suisse banker, Andreas Bachmann, pleaded guilty to helping Americans hide money in Switzerland and agreed to cooperate with the U.S. government.

FT

Two-thirds of this year's income tax in Britain will be paid by one in 10 adults as George Osborne leans heavily on Britain's highest earners, fuelling a debate over whether Wednesday's Budget should extend some help to higher-rate taxpayers.

The United States has announced its first "test" sale of oil from its strategic petroleum reserve since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, describing the planned release as intended "to appropriately assess the system's capabilities in the event of a disruption".

British security officials have been given special access by Google to YouTube video site to have content instantly screened if they think it threatens national security.

Multi-level marketing company Herbalife's trading practises will be investigated by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over claims that it is a "pyramid scheme".

As the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 drags on, aviation experts, frustrated relatives of those aboard and China allege that communications over the search have been slow, information contradictory and co-ordination patchy.

NYT

* General Motors said on Wednesday that it had received reports as early as 2001 - three years earlier than previously disclosed - of a safety defect in its cars that the company has now linked to 12 deaths and at least 31 accidents over the past decade.

* A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Fabrice Tourre, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc trader at the center of a troubled mortgage deal, to pay the Securities and Exchange Commission $825,000 in penalties and other costs. The sum fell just short of the roughly $1 million payout that the agency had requested.

* The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday that it had opened an official inquiry into Herbalife Ltd, the nutritional supplement company that has been the focus of a 15-month crusade by hedge fund billionaire William Ackman.

* King Digital Entertainment Plc, maker of hit mobile phone game "Candy Crush Saga", said on Wednesday that it expected to price its shares from $21 to $24 each in its forthcoming offering, which would value the company at $7.6 billion.

* Citigroup Inc cut the pay of its chairman for Mexico, Manuel Medina-Mora, by about $1.1 million last year from 2012, citing "control issues" at its Banamex USA unit.

* Hedge fund Elliott Management is raising its bet on Juniper Networks Inc after the networking equipment company announced a series of new initiatives.

* Jefferies Group LLC, the investment bank and brokerage firm, agreed on Wednesday to pay $25 million to settle accusations by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it failed to supervise traders who lied to investors about the price of mortgage-backed securities.

* Atomico, the venture capital firm led by Niklas Zennstrom, the co-founder of Skype, is investing in Brazil again, a sign that entrepreneurship continues to grow in Brazil even amid a lagging economy.

* The Financial Conduct Authority of Britain has hired Julia Hoggett, a managing director for debt capital markets products at Bank of America Merrill, as head of investment banking in its supervision division.

* Credit Karma, a credit score service, announced on Wednesday that it raised $85 million in a third round of fund-raising, led by Google Inc through an investment arm that specializes in late-stage technology companies.

Canada

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

* The federal transport safety agency is scrapping a requirement for railways to report on smaller spills involving hazardous materials, raising questions about the quality of the accident data Ottawa collects.

* The Toronto District School Board has pledged to tighten its oversight of provincially funded programs for students outside the classroom, after an audit revealed lax procedures for overseeing spending.

Reports in the business section:

* After building one of Canada's most successful independent whisky distilleries over the past two decades, John Hall has cashed in with the $186-million sale of his Forty Creek Distillery Ltd to Italian beverage giant Gruppo Campari.

NATIONAL POST

* A controversial social services provider that operates Canada's only supervised drug injection centre and runs dozens more projects in Vancouver's poverty-stricken Downtown Eastside appears headed for involuntary receivership and a possible court battle with the British Columbia government, because of concerns over its "spending practices" and financial "irregularities."

FINANCIAL POST

* Herbalife Ltd said on Wednesday that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission had opened an inquiry into its operations. Billionaire investor William Ackman has for months called on regulators to investigate Herbalife's distribution model, which he calls a "pyramid scheme."

* AltaGas Ltd could step in to help salvage a proposed natural gas-export terminal planned for Canada's West Coast as the project's Texas-based owners seek to rescue the development from insolvency.

China

CHINA SECURITIES JOURNAL

- China will improve the development of agricultural product futures market this year, said Jiang Yang, vice-president of the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

- China is drafting a rule saying internet financial and online peer-to-peer lending will be under the supervision of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, several sources told the newspaper.

CHINA DAILY

- A private kindergarten in the western city of Xi'an, home of the famed Terracotta Warriors, is being investigated over allegations it gave children unauthorised prescription medicines. School officials were detained by police.

The Conservatives should consider scrapping the 40 percent higher rate of income tax as an "iconic" pledge to help win voters, a Number 10 policy adviser has said.

UK PETROL PRICE FEARS AS OPEC RAISES OIL FORECAST

Opec has upgraded its forecast for world oil demand, raising the prospect of higher petrol prices ahead of next week's Budget.

The Guardian

BANK OF ENGLAND CALLS IN LEADING QC TO INVESTIGATE FOREX-RIGGING CLAIMS

The Bank of England has called in one of the most respected figures in the legal world, Anthony Grabiner QC, to investigate allegations that some of its staff may have been involved in manipulating the 3 trillion pound-a-day foreign exchange markets for almost 10 years.

BRITISH R&D SPENDING DOWN DESPITE GOVERNMENT'S INNOVATION STRATEGY

Britain spent less as a proportion of national income on research and development than the rest of the European Union in 2012 despite the government's apparent innovation push to boost growth.

The Times

INVESTORS DEMAND SCALP OF BARCLAYS BONUS-SETTING CHIEF

Investors who control hundreds of millions of pounds of Barclays shares are poised to vote to oust Sir John Sunderland, head of the board's remuneration committee.

COPPER PRICE SLUMP PUTS CHINA ON ITS METTLE AFTER BOND DEFAULT

Global commodity prices were shaken in recent days after China's first corporate bond default, with the red metal suffering the brunt of the selling spree. The scale of the sell-off reveals the depth of concerns over China's shaky credit markets, analysts said.

The Independent

CANDY CRUSH BOSSES TO MAKE MILLIONS FROM NEW YORK FLOAT

UK executives at the games studio behind Candy Crush Saga are set to make millions more than initially thought from the company's stock market listing, after the developer was valued at up to $7.56 billion (4.55 billion pound) on Wednesday.

G4S AGREES TO PAY 109 MILLION POUND OVER ELECTRONIC TAGGING SCANDAL

G4S has agreed to pay nearly 110 million pound back to the taxpayer following a scandal in which it charged for the monitoring of non-existent electronic tags, including some which had been assigned to dead offenders.

Fly On The Wall 7:00 AM Market Snapshot

ECONOMIC REPORTS

Domestic economic reports scheduled for today include:Jobless claims for week of Mar. 8 at 8:30--consensus 330KRetail sales for February at 8:30--consensus up 0.2%Import price index for February at 8:30--consensus up 0.5%Business inventories for January at 10:00--consensus up 0.4%

ANALYST RESEARCH

Upgrades

ATK (ATK) upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at BarclaysActivision Blizzard (ATVI) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/MerrillAlon USA Energy (ALJ) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at MacquarieCabela's (CAB) upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at William BlairDresser-Rand (DRC) upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at William BlairQihoo 360 (QIHU) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit SuisseStarz (STRZA) upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Evercore

Approach Resources (AREX) initiated with a Buy at MizuhoBeneficial Mutual (BNCL) initiated with a Buy at Compass PointClifton Savings (CSBK) initiated with a Buy at Compass PointConcur (CNQR) initiated with a Neutral at B. RileyCornerstone OnDemand (CSOD) initiated with a Buy at B. RileyDiamondback Energy (FANG) initiated with a Buy at MizuhoInvestors Bancorp (ISBC) initiated with a Buy at Compass PointJive Software (JIVE) initiated with a Buy at B. RileyKearny Financial (KRNY) initiated with a Buy at Compass PointKnowles (KN) initiated with an Outperform at JMP SecuritiesLaredo Petroleum (LPI) initiated with a Buy at MizuhoPerfect World (PWRD) initiated with an Outperform at Credit SuisseUltimate Software (ULTI) initiated with a Buy at B. RileyWorkday (WDAY) initiated with a Neutral at B. RileyYY Inc. (YY) initiated with an Outperform at Credit Suisse

Comment viewing options

Very wild speculation: Saudi is behing Ukraine bussiness because they will reach rock-bottom in oil production* and they want US involved in a conflict to avoid invasion, US sensed this and works behind scenes in Qatar, Saudi sees this and is bashing Qatar. Am I too paranoic.

*[This could happend if they learned how to recover oil very well from big fields, that would make some of the big fields translated from Hubbert Curve to Hubbert cliff]

Second wild speculation: is it possible that the Flight 370 has been lost over South China Sea and China shoot it down?

Here's some wild speculation for you: Flight 370 was hijacked by AQ (or the CIA, if you want to split hairs) and will be used in a future false flag ala 9/11 (probably on the West Coast thsi time).

I don't think the Saudis give a rat's ass about the Ukraine but you're right about them making funny slurping sounds with the straw at the bottom of the glass; they've been pumping more saltwater than sweet light crude forever, down to the sour strinky stuff now.

United States has announced its first "test" sale of oil from its strategic petroleum reserve since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, describing the planned release as intended "to appropriately assess the system's capabilities in the event of a disruption".

Test for what?

Saudi Arabia:

Qatar undergoes "orderly" succession

Qatar doubles down on Syrian opposition

Guardian reports another Spring offensive coming against Assad as Israel ramps up attacks across the Lebanese border

No Lebanon govt formation and the offshore auctions delayed again - who would have thought possible

Egypt rounds up Al Jazeera reporters (US warns) - this after .mil threw out the NGOs of which Lahood's son was caught in the middle

King orders all Syrian Jihadis home days again deadline; airs confession of Syrian fighter

""A parallel business has been set. This business is, forces of the Greek neoliberalism, bank CEOs, former bank executives, big law bureaus that serve specific interests, and all this system informs, makes and evaluates suggestions that flood Troika. Troika takes all this stuff to embody it to a general plan which finally shapes its proposition because Troika didn't know anything about Greece, didn't know [for example] how many heavy occupations we have, how many must be cut. A middle-level officer couldn't know how the Greek tax system works.""

Russia is ready to retaliate with counter sanctions against the EU and US if they go ahead with economic measures against Russia over tension in Crimea, the Russian Economic Ministry has said.

"We hope that there will only be targeted political sanctions, and not a broad package affecting economic trade,” Deputy Economic Development Minister Aleksey Likhachev said.

“Our sanctions will be, of course, similar,” he added.

One way Russia plans on shielding itself from pending sanctions is by boosting trade in other currencies, not the US dollar.

“We need to increase trade volume conducted in national currencies. Why, in relation to China, India, Turkey and other countries, should we be negotiating in dollars? Why should we do that? We should sign deals in national currencies- this applies to energy, oil, gas, and everything else,” Alexey Ulyukaev, the Minister of Economic Development said in an interview with the Vesti 24 TV Channel.

The Duma, Russia’s parliament, is drafting legislation to allow Moscow to freeze assets of Western companies and individuals in the event sanctions are imposed

Oh round eye, our booming economy is crashing terrible. You must give us more TPP concessions to avert imminent disaster. Is it OK with you Joe if we emigrate another 300 million of our industrious and honorable citizens to your border cities?

Many bland statements then later get kind of contradicted by the article itself:

information gushed out of its mainframesSo 11 gigabytes of data over almost 2 weeks are considered a "gush" for a company of Target's size?

FireEye’s alerts from Nov. 30 and more from Dec. 2, when hackers installed yet another version of the malware. Not only should those alarms have been impossible to miss, they went off early enough that the hackers hadn’t begun transmitting the stolen card data out of Target’s networkObfuscation. The graphic box states "On Dec. 2 the credit card numbers started flowing out." So then the Nov. 30 alerts went off early enough, while the ones on Dec. 2 obviously hadn't.

Conspicuously completey ignored are the questions:- How was it possible the malware code could so easily get planted in Target’s security and payments system- Did they manage or tried to get the PIN numbers of Debit and Credit Cards too?